Quebecair Flight 255 was a scheduled flight from

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. On March 29, 1979, the

Fairchild F-27 The Fairchild F-27 and Fairchild Hiller FH-227 are versions of the Fokker F27 Friendship twin-engined, turboprop, passenger aircraft formerly manufactured under license by Fairchild Hiller in the United States. The Fairchild F-27 was similar to ...

, registered CF-QBL, that was operating the flight crashed minutes after takeoff at about 6:45 PM (local time) when an engine exploded. All three crew and 14 of the 21 passengers died.

Accident

At about 6:45 PM, the 21 year-old Fairchild F-27 took off from Jean Lesage International Airport (then known as Aéroport de

l'Ancienne-Lorette L'Ancienne-Lorette () is a city in central Quebec, Canada. It is a suburb of and an enclave within Quebec City. It was merged with Quebec City on January 1, 2002, as part of a 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, but, after a 2004 r ...

or Aéroport de Sainte-Foy). Almost immediately, pilot André Bessette alerted the control tower to a fire within their right engine, which quickly spread along the whole wing. The crew then attempted to circle back to the airport for an

emergency landing An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to term ...

, only to crash in what was then a sloping farm field, about 1,3 km (0.8 mile) east of the airport's nearest runway. According to witnesses, the plane flew at a height of not more than 200 feet (61 m) when the right wing came into contact with the ground, causing the rest of the plane to roll upside down before it suddenly fell down on the ground "like a brick". The plane broke apart upon impact and the debris caught fire right away. The crash was seen and heard by a number of nearby residents, whose homes were in some cases located approximately only 200 meters (656 ft) away. They were amongst the first to reach the crash site along with some officers of the ''Service de Police de Sainte-Foy'' and

lay brothers Lay brother is a largely extinct term referring to religious brothers, particularly in the Catholic Church, who focused upon manual service and secular matters, and were distinguished from choir monks or friars in that they did not pray in choi ...

from the nearby Maison mère des Frères du Sacré Cœur, using

pocket knives A pocketknife (also spelled as pocket knife) is a knife with one or more blades that fold into the handle. They are also known as jackknives, folding knives, Everyday carry, EDC knife, or may be referred to as a penknife, though a penknife may a ...

and home tools to free a few passengers who were still strapped to their seats. Two men supporting a woman, all of them injured, were able to get out of the wreckage on their own and walk down the field, despite their injuries. They were guided to a nearby house to wait for paramedics to reach the scene.

Emergency response

At the time, the former city of Sainte-Foy (now a part of

) had emergency plans prepared in the event of a crash at or near the airport. However, a few unforeseen circumstances somewhat hampered the efficiency and the swiftness of the operations. The first setback occurred about 10 minutes after help first arrived on the scene, when one of the wings' fuel tank exploded, generating an intense, 15 meters-high (50 ft) burst of flames which forced the rescuers to back away momentarily. Rescue efforts were further hindered by the lack of a proper, direct road access to the field. The fact that the event occurred in late march also meant that the thawing soil and the

snowmelt In hydrology, snowmelt is surface runoff produced from melting snow. It can also be used to describe the period or season during which such runoff is produced. Water produced by snowmelt is an important part of the annual water cycle in many part ...

made the ground too soft and muddy for heavy emergency vehicles to venture on. A fire truck attempted to reach the burning debris soon after the crash, but got stuck and had to be pulled out later by a road grader. The police eventually had to bring in

tracked vehicles Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the we ...

as it soon became clear that it would be the fastest and most efficient way to ferry the injured, the dead, first responders, as well as tools and supplies up and down the field.

Survivors and victims

Despite these problems and the intensity of the fire, 19 out of the 24 people (crew included) who were on the plane were pulled from the wreckage, most of them badly injured. They all were on their way to the hospital within half an hour. 11 were brought to the Centre hospitalier de l'Université Laval (CHUL) but 6 of them died on the way or shortly after their arrival. The remaining 8 were brought to'' Hôpital Laval'', out of which only 2 survived. Two passengers, as well as the entire crew, consisting of

Pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

André Bessette (a former

Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Cana ...

pilot), First Officer Alain Willaume and

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

Danielle Ouellette were killed on impact. Bessette and Willaume's bodies were the last to be pulled out of the wreckage, the following morning. According to a survivor, a man died on the plane right before the crash, possibly from a heart attack or some other undefined cause.

Investigation

The flight data recorders were recovered soon after the crash. Canadian investigators concluded that shortly after the twin-

turboprop A turboprop is a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine that drives an aircraft Propeller (aeronautics), propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction drive, reduction gearbox, gas compressor, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propellin ...

airliner lifted off, the low pressure impeller from the no. 2

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

burst, causing the forward part of the engine to separate. The flight crew were unable to raise the

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

because debris from the engine damaged the electronic gear selection circuitry. This, together with the exposed engine, increased the

aerodynamic drag In fluid dynamics, drag, sometimes referred to as fluid resistance, is a force acting opposite to the direction of motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two fluid layers, two solid surfaces, or b ...

dramatically, and the aircraft was unable to climb or maintain

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

during its final turn. The

centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the barycenter or balance point) is the unique point at any given time where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. For a ...

shifted beyond its

aft This list of ship directions provides succinct definitions for terms applying to spatial orientation in a marine environment or location on a vessel, such as ''fore'', ''aft'', ''astern'', ''aboard'', or ''topside''. Terms * Abaft (prepositi ...

limit due to the engine separation and passenger movement, causing the

airspeed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air it is flying through (which itself is usually moving relative to the ground due to wind). In contrast, the ground speed is the speed of an aircraft with respect to the sur ...

to drop below the

minimum control speed The minimum control speed (VMC) of a multi-engine aircraft (specifically an airplane) is a V speeds, V-speed that specifies the calibrated airspeed below which Stabilizer (aircraft)#Directional stabilization and control, directional or Ailerons, la ...

shortly before the aircraft struck the hillside.

Notes

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in Canada Aviation accidents and incidents in 1979 Airliner accidents and incidents in Canada Quebecair accidents and incidents Accidents and incidents involving the Fairchild F-27 March 1979 in Canada 1979 in Quebec Airliner accidents and incidents involving uncontained engine failure